This invention relates to means for enhancing the security of tape files; and more particularly to methods and associated apparatus for detecting whether a given reel of tape has been unspooled and rewound; doing so photo-electrically.
Workers in the art of making and using spooled webs, such as magnetic tape, are, at times, very concerned about security--e.g., about knowing whether or not a given tape segment has been used during a certain time period. Such problems are extreme in the magnetic tape art where it is becoming extremely important to be able to detect the use of sensitive tape files. Such files may contain very valuable highly sensitive data (e.g., a "scrambler code" used for transmitting secret, proprietary data over a relatively non-secure transmission medium).
Thus, many workers in the related arts would be intensely interested in being able to detect whether or not a given reel of tape has been "used"; that is, whether the reel has been mounted on a tape drive and the tape unspooled and operated-upon (e.g., read magnetically and/or written-upon, etc.) during a given reference period--e.g., since the reel was last checked by a security officer.
It is also well known that personnel having legitimate access to such tape files may, at times, be severely tempted to abuse their power and use tapes illegitimately and in secret--e.g., surreptitiously withdrawing a reel of tape and mounting it on a tape drive to run it past a read head so as to make a copy-tape of sensitive data thereon.
The subject invention provides a solution, at least in part, to this problem and a possible deterrent to such illegitimate use of tape files--doing so by teaching formulation of a "reeled-web signature" which can indicate whether a given reel of tape has ever been unspooled and respooled. It goes without saying that workers in the art will find such an invention of tremendous value and help.
I have noticed that a typical length of magnetic tape such as mylar tape segment t shown in FIG. 2 as wound upon an associated tape reel R-1 winds upon its reel or spool in a certain "random spooled" fashion, tape t may be understood as conventional, comprising a magnetic recording web about one-half inch wide by about 1-5 mils thick and having magnetic material recorded on one or both sides of its mylar (or like) substrate. The tape is typically wrapped upon itself several thousand times about the hub of a reel R-1 as is well known in the art. I have observed that each time such a length of tape is unwound and then rewound upon a storage spool, the successive turns, or "reeled layers" of tape virtually never sit in registry exactly atop one another--rather they assume a "stacking profile" that is characteristically "random" as it quite schematically indicated in FIGS. 3 and 4.
Such an unspooling and rewinding would typically take place in the course of mounting the reel of tape (e.g., supply reel R-2 in FIG. 1) in operative position on an associated tape drive apparatus TD as well known in the art and threading the tape t through a read head apparatus R, and intermediate tape guide means, to terminate on a take-up reel R-1. Thus, as the tape is unspooled from supply reel R-2 and drawn past the read head RH and the intermediate guides, it will be understood as taken-up by take-up reel R-1 in a prescribed well known fashion.
While I cannot be sure, I believe that the cause(s) of this "random" stacking profile derive, in part, from such things as the random infiltration of ambient air between tape turns during wind-up, from shifting tension forces on the tape during spooling and unspooling and/or from a shift in winding tension.
Thus, I have formulated a technique for detecting whether a given reel of tape has been unspooled and rewound--even partially--this technique involving a determination of the reeled-tape "signature" after any, or all, winding sequence, as more particularly described below.
I have, further, devised an improved tape reel wherein a "reference locus" may be automatically provided in a tape reel for comparison with the wrapping profile of the tape.
Moreover, the subject invention also teaches techniques and apparatus for automatically detecting such a wrapping profile or "signature" for any (every) tape-wrapping sequence. That is, each time a segment of tape is wrapped upon a spool, the wrapping profile may be automatically detected and identified uniquely (and preferably encoded) so that each such tape-wrapping sequence can provide a unique "finger-print" of itself--this preferably being done automatically or semi-automatically.
If such a "signature" be recorded it may be used as a means of indicating any and all uses of the tape which involve any spooling of tape segment. For instance, a "wind-up log" may be kept for each reel, and dated, so that unauthorized "unspooling and associated use" can be automatically detected and attended to--e.g., by a "spot check" of the wind-up log for that reel. Such a practice can obviously be used as a powerful deterrent to any would-be malfactors also!
Thus, it is an object of the subject invention to provide at least some of the foregoing solutions and features of advantage. Another object is to provide a method and means of determining whether a segment of tape has been unspooled and rewound. A related object is to provide a wrapping profile or "signature" of a "reeled web".
A further object is to provide a determination of the wrapping profile for a spooled tape. Yet a further object is to detect such a wrapping profile, or signature, of a spooled tape segment in a prescribed encoded form, convenient for use in improving security against illegitimate tape usage, etc. A further object is to provide related techniques and apparatus to detect such a signature of reeled web segments. A further object is to provide improved techniques and associated apparatus for spooling tape segments on a prescribed reel. A further related object is to provide prescribed reference loci on such a tape reel for better determining such a "signature". A particular object is to do this with photo-electric means.